Anxiety Disorders & OCD
Anxiety Disorders and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Anxiety disorders involve excessive fear, worry, or physical tension that feels difficult to control. Symptoms may include racing thoughts, panic, avoidance, muscle tension, or sleep problems. It can be general or focused on specific situations (e.g., social settings, specific phobias, etc). Anxiety reflects how the brain processes threat and safety. OCD involves intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors or mental rituals aimed at reducing distress. People with OCD usually know the thoughts don’t make sense but feel unable to stop them. OCD is related to anxiety but follows distinct brain patterns.
Did you know?
Psychiatric treatment for anxiety and OCD do not usually take the cause of your symptopms into account. Instead, they are usually chosen based on subjectively reported symptoms. Modern research, however, shows that both anxiety and OCD have brain-based causes. Anxiety involves altered communication between brain networks that detect danger and those that regulate emotion whereas OCD involves circuits that perform error detection, habit formation, and cognitive control. Alterations in these regions can create repetitive “loops” in the brain.
So what does this mean?
Anxiety and OCD are not just about overthinking or willpower. They involves alterations in brain activity and network balance, which helps explain why reassurance alone does not work, and why not all treatments work for every person.